Jim R. Ryun

James Ronald Ryun (born April 29, 1947) is an American former Republican politician and Olympic track and field athlete who, at his peak, was widely regarded as the world’s leading middle-distance runner and later served as a United States Representative from Kansas. He was born in Wichita, Kansas, and was raised in the Church of Christ. As a youth, he struggled to find success in organized sports, being cut from his church baseball team, his junior high basketball team, and even initially from his junior high track and field team. He later recalled praying to find a sport in which he could excel and eventually tried out for the cross-country team, unexpectedly making the squad and earning a letter jacket, an experience he described as the beginning of his running career.

Ryun attended Wichita East High School, where he quickly emerged as a prodigious middle-distance talent. In 1964, as a high school junior, he became the first high school athlete to run a mile in under four minutes, clocking 3:59.0 and placing eighth at the 1964 California Relays in a historic mass finish under four minutes. He ran five sub–four-minute miles while still in high school, including the first sub–four-minute mile ever run in a high school event, a 3:58.3 at the 1965 Kansas high school state meet. His time of 3:55.3, set in winning the 1965 AAU Championship mile ahead of Olympic gold medalist and former world-record holder Peter Snell, stood as the national high school record for 36 years. As a high school senior, Track & Field News ranked him the fourth-best miler in the world, and he was named the magazine’s “High School Athlete of the Year” in 1965. Decades later, ESPN.com selected him as the greatest high school athlete of all time, ahead of figures such as Tiger Woods and LeBron James.

Ryun enrolled at the University of Kansas, where he studied photojournalism and continued to dominate middle-distance running. He graduated in 1970 with a degree in photojournalism. While still a teenager, he set multiple world records. In 1966, at age 19, he set a world record in the half mile (880 yards) with a time of 1:44.9 and then in the mile with a time of 3:51.3. Because the 880-yard race is slightly longer than 800 meters, his 1:44.9 was converted to an estimated 800-meter time of 1:44.3, equaling the existing world record, though it was not ratified as an 800-meter record. In 1967 he set additional world records in the indoor half mile (1:48.3), the outdoor mile (3:51.1), and the 1,500 meters (3:33.1). His 1,500-meter world record, set at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a United States vs. British Commonwealth meet in July 1967, was widely hailed as one of his greatest performances, featuring a powerful finishing drive that Track and Field News described as “the mightiest finishing drive ever seen.” His 1,500-meter mark remained the world record for six years, until 1974, and his 3:51.1 mile remained the world record for eight years, until 1975. Over the course of his career, he broke the American record in the mile four times: once as a high school senior (3:55.3 on June 27, 1965), twice as a college freshman (3:53.7 on June 4, 1966, and 3:51.3 on July 17, 1966), and once as a college sophomore (3:51.1 on June 23, 1967). He remains the last American to have held the world record in the mile.

In collegiate competition, Ryun was the 1967 NCAA outdoor mile champion and the NCAA indoor mile champion in 1967, 1968, and 1969. He still holds American junior (19 and under) records at one mile (3:51.3) and two miles (8:25.1), and his American junior record in the 800 meters stood for exactly 50 years. His American junior record in the 1,500 meters (3:36.1) remained in place until it was broken in 2021. Ryun’s dominance was recognized with numerous honors: he was Track & Field News “Athlete of the Year” in 1966 and 1967, becoming the first athlete to win the award in consecutive years; he was named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year” in 1966 and appeared on the magazine’s cover five times; he received the James E. Sullivan Award in 1966 as the nation’s top amateur athlete; and he was ABC’s Wide World of Sports “Athlete of the Year” the same year. Track & Field News world rankings placed him first in the world at 800 meters in 1966 and first at 1500 meters/mile in 1966 and 1967, with additional top-10 rankings in that event in 1965, 1968, 1969, 1971, and 1972.

Ryun represented the United States in three Olympic Games: 1964, 1968, and 1972. At age 17 years and 137 days, he qualified for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, making him the second-youngest American male track athlete ever to qualify for the Games. His greatest Olympic success came at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, where he won the silver medal in the 1,500 meters. Anticipating that the high altitude would slow times, he believed that 3:39 would be sufficient to win; he ran 3:37.8, but finished second to Kenya’s Kip Keino, who set an Olympic record of 3:34.91, a mark that stood until 1984. Ryun later said he considered his performance equivalent to a gold medal because he believed he had done his best, though he was criticized by some commentators who felt he had disappointed expectations. At the 1972 Munich Olympics, Ryun was tripped and fell during a 1,500-meter qualifying heat after a collision with Ghana’s Billy Fordjour. Although the International Olympic Committee acknowledged that a foul had occurred, appeals by the United States to have him reinstated were denied, and he did not advance. His final season as an amateur in 1972 included the third-fastest mile of his career (3:52.8 at Toronto on July 29), then the third-fastest mile in history, a personal best of 13:38.2 in the 5,000 meters, and a victory in the 1,500 meters at the U.S. Olympic Trials. He left amateur athletics after the 1972 season and competed professionally for two years on the International Track Association circuit. In 1980 he was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, and in 2003 into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame. He has also competed in masters athletics.

After graduating from the University of Kansas, Ryun moved to Eugene, Oregon, in search of an optimal training environment to continue his running career. About six months later, he relocated with his family to Santa Barbara, California, where they lived for nine years. In 1981 the family returned to Lawrence, Kansas, where he has since made his home, though during his congressional service he was listed on the House roll as “R–Topeka.” He also owns a farm in Jefferson County, Kansas. Raised in the Church of Christ, Ryun and his wife later became members of Grace Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Lawrence. In his post-competitive running years, he operated Jim Ryun Sports, a company that organized sports camps, and he worked extensively as a motivational speaker, addressing corporate audiences and Christian groups around the country. Since 1973, he and his family have hosted summer running camps for promising high school runners. Living with a 50 percent hearing loss, he partnered with the ReSound Hearing Aid Company to develop “Sounds of Success,” a program designed to assist children with hearing impairments.

Ryun’s entry into electoral politics came in the mid-1990s. Although he had long been interested in public affairs, he later recounted that he did not seriously consider running for Congress until 1996, when Representative Todd Tiahrt, during the 1996 Summer Olympics torch relay, informed him that Kansas’s Topeka-based 2nd Congressional District would be open and encouraged him to seek the seat. A member of the Republican Party, Ryun was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996 and served six consecutive terms from 1996 to 2007, representing Kansas’s 2nd congressional district. During this period, he participated in the legislative process in the House of Representatives and represented the interests of his Kansas constituents through a time of significant national and international developments. His tenure encompassed debates over domestic policy, economic issues, and national security in the years surrounding the turn of the twenty-first century.

In his personal life, Ryun met his future wife, Anne, when she requested his autograph after he broke the world record for the mile in Berkeley, California. They married in 1969 and have two sons, Ned and Drew, and two daughters, Catherine and Heather, as well as 13 grandchildren. Together with his sons Ned and Drew, he has co-authored several books, including “Heroes Among Us,” “The Courage to Run,” and “In Quest of Gold – The Jim Ryun Story,” which reflect on his athletic career, faith, and public life. In recognition of his achievements in athletics and public service, President Donald J. Trump awarded Jim Ryun the Presidential Medal of Freedom on July 24, 2020.